The Centers for Disease Control deigned to count the following abortion deaths in their most recent Abortion Surveillance Summary, for 2004:
Today I'll look at deaths in 1973. The CDC counts 47 -- 25 legal, 19 illegal, and 3 unknown. Remember that "illegal" deaths can be like
Myrta Baptiste -- cases in which the woman thought the abortion was legal and safe, but after she died the CDC discovered that her doctor's license wasn't currently valid and so counted it as illegal.
I know of 8 abortion deaths in 1973, which means the CDC has at least 29 other deaths I don't know about:
Evelyn Dudley collapsed outside her home due to hemorrhage from an abortion performed at Friendship Medical Center -- the same facility that performed fatal abortion on at least 2 other women.
Kathy Murphy died from a septic abortion performed at the same abortion facility where at least four other women died.
Linda Padfield was sent home with most of her fetus still rotting inside her. She was one of two safe and legal abortion patients to die under the care of former criminal abortionist Benjamin Munson.
"Donna" Roe suffered a fatal embolism (foreign matter or air in the bloodstream) during a prostaglandin abortion.
"Dorothy" Roe likewise suffered a fatal embolism, leaving four children motherless.
"Eleanor" Roe suffered an embolism that caused a fatal clotting disorder.
"Vanessa" Roe also suffered a fatal embolism.
Julia Rogers, like Evelyn Dudley, died after an abortion at Friendship Medical Center.
For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post. Or you can place them in the context of other abortion deaths in the 1970s, and the years surrounding the 1970s:
For more abortion deaths, visit the Cemetery of Choice:
For more abortion deaths broken down by year, see this post.
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6 comments:
471 women died of complications of pregnancy and childbirth in the US in 1973.
Anon, I"m trying to be polite, but it's hard to do when all you do is come in here and post the same goddam things over and over.
I'm all for addressing childbirth mortality. I've never said I opposed it. But YOU sound like you're proposing mandatory abortions. NOT EVERYBODY AGREES WITH YOU THAT BABIES ARE VERMIN. Can you grasp that? Many, many women PREFER LIVE BABIES, and they deserve MEDICAL CARE, regardless of how much you, personally, want them to abort. Okay? Got that? Can you wrap your brain around this?
If illegal abortions before Roe/Wade were less deadly than has been claimed, that's because the bans against abortion were not well-enforced or were inherently leaky (legal abortions available in other states). A SUCCESSFUL abortion ban WOULD be deadly. South Africa showed this in the 1990s when they liberalized their abortion laws and documented an immediate 95% drop in hospital admissions for abortion complications.
JustTheFacts, please get some facts. Study maternal mortality prior to legalization of abortion. It plummeted after the introduction not of "safe and legal" abortion, but of things like transfusions and antibiotics.
And how would a successful abortion ban be deadly? If the law was being successfully enforced, there would be NO abortions, thus no abortion deaths.
GG, nice quibble. Have you considered law school? By "successful ban" I mean, the ban actually stops women from getting abortions from skilled, trained abortion docs. Unlike the bans in the USA before Roe/Wade. And unlike the ban in Ireland.
SoMG, we oppose ALL abortions. It's prochoicers who are the ones waving coathangers around, threatening to impale hapless women if the law changes. If y'all don't want women to die from illegal abortions, then DON'T PERFORM THEM.
Every single woman who dies from an abortion dies at the hands of somebody like you, who thinks abortion is a good idea. The only prolifers who have performed ANY abortions of any kind are the ones who converted after having been among the prochoice.
If you offered real help instead of just despair, this wouldn't even be an issue in the first place.
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